Slip slop slap flip flop flap

Pictures of some of the last few pots that need decorating before I go away on my trip. There's a couple more need doing too but hopefully they'll be done tomorrow. It'll be good to leave things finished and drying out while I'm gone.

Today has been mainly calm with just a half dozen or so moments of mild terror and only and only one I think of sheer all out panic.

That's better than yesterday when I was flapping so much by the time I left the house to head to work that I ended up cycling around the block the long way to get to work just to calm myself down a bit. Nearly 10 miles instead of the 1.5 I usually do. The sunshine and quietness and thinking about the road rather than the work did the trick though and when I did get to work I was able to do stuff instead of running around the farm yard flapping and scaring the cows.

Saturday

Well the flapping and squawking of a Hannah in a tizz could probably be heard and felt all across south-west Scotland yesterday afternoon. After a lovely chat with Amanda in the morning where she commented that I was so much calmer than she had expected me to be I then had a major flap all afternoon, so much to do, what to do first, what take priority ta this point in time etc etc etc.
I had been going to go down to Cumbria this weekend, stay with my potter friend Ben Fosker and go to see John Dix demonstrate as of course I hadn't seen him work last weekend at all. Then come thrusday I had Paul offering to help me with the chimney all saturday and I was shattered and couldn't bear the thought of driving anymore either and so decided not to go after all and sent my apologies. Then yesterday Christine rang saying she was going and would I like a lift, so after a bit more flapping and squawking I said yes. It has been a great day, another long one and tiring again but great to see and good to visit Solway Ceramics finally - great set up there. I took a couple of pictures but they're a wee bit blurry I'm afraid. Nevermind, it was good to see and I enjoyed watching his way of working as it is so very far from the way that I work.
The plate above is for a commission for the Geffrye Museum (that will of course be obvious if you read the lettering) hopefully the muddy colour that's filling in the pelican will turn orange. Maybe I should have tested that first.....
Speaking of clay oh blimey I got a nice present the other day! Corr it's a treat. Hopefully I'll do something with it this week, ha in all that spare time I have you know, my lists for this week to come are huge and ever increasing in length and number. Right it's clock forward night tonight and so it's 10 o'clock already and I've yet another early start in the morning.

Organised / Chaos / Both?

Above: Calm
Below: Chaos

Scottish Potters at Kindrogan

This weekend I have mostly been demonstrating what I do. I was invited by the Scottish Potters Association to be one of their three demonstrators for the annual Spring weekend at Kindrogan in Perthshire. The other two were Jim Robison and John Dix, both potters of shall we say a little greater vintage than myself and both seasoned demonstrators. I've done a couple of wee slots before but nothing more than about 45minutes. This started with a slide show on friday evening - not great, I made a bit of a hash of it, I flapped quite a bit and garbled somewhat but although it was chaos compared to the other two folks, in comparison to my own last slide presentation it was a lot better! I know it doesn't take much to be better than the last one and I know to those there on friday who hadn't seen the last one they may still feel it was rather poor but this one felt like a huge leap forward.

Then from first thing saturday through to 4 o'clock on sunday I was demonstrating. The first hour or so was a bit scary. I had a plan in my head as to what I was going to make. The room I was in is upstairs in the centre and John Dix was in the room below me. I was quietly throwing whilst I could hear John talking away confidently and his audience regularly bursting out laughing while mine were sat still and very quiet. Once people started to ask questions it suddenly felt much easier and I started to relax a bit. It was when I got my slip trailers out though that I it felt best, I was stunned by the reaction. I'm so chuffed that people seemed so genuinely impressed and that they wanted to watch more and more of what I do. After the first couple of hours it was tea break time and my room emptied (people can wander in and out of the rooms as they wish as all three demonstrators are working simultaneously). I was worried they might not come back but when I spotted that half a dozen had left their notebooks on their seats I smiled because that meant they'd be coming back for them.

Some people did say some really flattering things about what I'd done. I heard from one person that a comment had been made that I should have talked more about what I was doing and any other comments from the audience would be great so that I know a bit better what worked and what didn't. My squared dishes went down a storm in the demo. I did at one point find that I had relaxed so much I started to tell them about my dragon friends, there were some confused faces and I realised maybe I should keep the dragons a bit more secret in case dragon slayers try to come and find them. That would never do.

I took Blogger Andrew with me as my helper but actually lent him to my wonderful sweet friend Barbel for the weekend and he helped her with building and firing her kiln over the weekend. On the way up on friday me and Andrew stopped for a quick play in the snow that was left over.


I sold a lot of pots too and so that was great and I feel I can now look forward to the next jaunt properly feeling a bit more relaxed and a bit more confident about the whole thing. Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a different place but although I'm utterly exhausted I feel like I did an ok job, lots of things learnt that I would and wouldn't do at the next one but I don't feel like I completely messed up or anything - very unusual for me really. I am stunned and surprised that I actually ended up enjoying the demonstrating bit which really threw me as I wasn't expecting that at all. I had a great student helper over the weekend who was wonderful and brought me regular supplies of tea and warm water for throwing with, my diva style request for jelly babies was honoured many times over, thank you all, you know who you are!
I haven't any images of my own from the weekend, I was busy doing something else but these ones of me were taken by Amy Buttress.
At the end of sunday I'd told the group in my room how I'd been worrying about the fact that John's audience were always laughing and clapping. Bless them they conspired to all stamp their feet and cheer and clap and generally make a loud ruckus all at the same time as I finished. It was hysterical, at least it was to me, I was so very tired and rather emotional about the fact that I'd managed to do it. I'm still fair pleased about it too. So hopefully tonight I'll be sleeping soundly and recovering from the weekend before tomorrow getting everything into order in preparation for America...

Seeking Beautiful Things

"A new online boutique has launched that makes it easier to buy hand-crafted, individual and unusual objects for you and your home, direct from the maker.
Everything on the site is made by an artist. Every product has a story and it doesn’t begin with “Once upon a time in a factory…” It’s easy to find what you are looking for; customers can browse homewares and accessories to find products by artists including Amanda Simmons (glass), Kate Schuricht (Raku and stoneware pottery), Stacey Bentley (enamel jewellery), Hannah McAndrew (Slipware pottery), Timea Sido (ceramics) and Richard Shock (wood turning)."

www.seekandadore.com

So pop along and have a look at the goodies available there (the dragon jug above is one of my offerings). It's a new site so will be growing considerable over the next few months, the organisation of it from my point of view is great, the way to work with the site seemed complicated at first but actually once you've done it a couple of times it is fairly straight forward and helps you get a lot of detail about the products up there. I'm really interested to see how it goes. From a makers view these things are quite an investment of time and money and work as the pieces are all to be photographed and then put aside for the time that they are on the site so that something doesn't get sold twice accidental.
Anyway I think the site looks good, the makers seem to be of a good quality and I wish SeekandAdore the best of luck with the new venture. So spread the word, tell the world and see what you think and whether there's anything that tempts you. You'll find my great friend and very talented glass artist Amanda Simmons on there too. Enjoy.

The Leach Pottery's Hand to Mashiko

The following has been sent out by The Leach Pottery in St Ives in response to the effect of the horrendous events in recent days on the pottery industry. This first link of mine is to the Red Cross appeal which of course helps with the more immediate and pressing needs.

The Leach Pottery says:
The trustees and staff of the Leach Pottery would like to express our great sadness at the recent catastrophe that has beset Japan. The Leach Pottery’s historic and current links to Japan, dating back over a century, are of great importance to us and the friendship we have received from the Japanese people over the years has been unwavering. We have not forgotten the support we received from the people of Mashiko pottery village and members of the Mingei Association in 2008 when individuals collectively donated over £40,000 towards rebuilding our pottery in St Ives and we would like to offer them back the hand of friendship now.

We are launching an appeal to raise funds for Mashiko which has been badly hit by the earthquake. Mashiko has over 400 studios and kilns, providing the main livelihood of the village, and the recent quake has caused considerable damage to both kilns and buildings. Mashiko’s two main museums, the Mashiko Ceramics Museum and the Hamada Reference Museum have also been badly hit.

Mashiko Town in Tochigi prefecture is located about 60 miles north of Tokyo. In 1923 Shoji Hamada, co-founder of the Leach Pottery in St Ives with Bernard Leach, returned to Japan following the Tokyo earthquake of 1923. He settled in Mashiko with his family where he set up his own pottery, now owned and run by his potter grandson Tomoo Hamada, who attended the reopening of the Leach Pottery following its restoration in March 2008. Shoji Hamada also established the Hamada Reference Museum in Mashiko to display his stunning and internationally acclaimed collection of crafts and ceramics.

MASHIKO EARTHQUAKE APPEAL

You can donate to the Leach Pottery’s Mashiko Earthquake Appeal in any of the following ways:
By phone – call with you credit or debit card details on 01736 799703

By post – send a cheque to the Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust Ltd. (marking the back of the cheque ‘Mashiko Appeal’. Send to Mashiko Earthquake Appeal, The Leach Pottery, Higher Stennack, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2HE

By internet – donate through your Paypal account julia@leachpottery.com – please add a note clearly stating ‘Mashiko Earthquake Appeal’

If you are a UK taxpayer you can Gift Aid your donation by including the following information: Your name, address and postcode and confirmation that you wish the Leach Pottery to treat your donation as a Gift Aid donation. This simple act will allow us to claim a further 25p for each £1 donated towards the appeal.

Monday Sunny Day Full of Enthusiam Day

Busy busy busy, it's been a less of a flap and more of a getting things done with calm and serenity today or as near as I can ever get to being calm and serene.
I am excited about my new acquisition. I collected it last week, it's this beautiful log basket. I was rather embarrassed to be keeping my fire wood in a plastic box by the side of the fire, and well really any excuse to have another of this man's baskets. I love a beautiful basket and this certainly is that.
It's made by Trevor Leat who is based in Auchencairn, just on the coast here. Do please have a look at his website to have a look at the wonderful things he gets up to. As I say I love baskets, after pots I could happily collect baskets but they do take up rather more room, although a basket full of pots, hmmm, nice thought.
Trevor is trying to find a supplier of willow in the states. He's hoping to visit the USA this year but needs to be able to source a good amount of willow over there and he's having a bit of trouble. So over to you my American readers, where can he get it from? Do any of you have basket weaving friends? Can you help him out? It would be great if you can, let me know and I'll pass it on or else email him directly. Thank you in advance for any help.

I have made 15 or so little plates, I wanted something that I could make quite a few of and not need to feel too precious about so that I could get into a bit of a slip trailing rhythm and hopefully in doing so and in not trailing things that had to be the same that I might get into a slightly looser mode. I did all the plates this morning in a couple of hours and had a ball. I must do that again. A year or so ago I set myself the task to slip a couple of dozen pie dishes in less than three minutes each for the same reason. It was great. I needed another dozen or so as I could have just carried on and on.
Hopefully they'll be ready to ship off to these workshops in America. Fingers crossed.

The lovely ladies at MadeByHandOnline have just made me maker of the week and have written a blog post about me. You can see it here. The have a selection of my Birdie pots for sale on line in their shop, including my brand spanking new Birdie cake stands.

Tomorrow I have thirty odd mugs to slip and plenty pots to be throwing once I've glazed the kiln load of bisque pots that are ready and waiting to be finished. Hopefully I'll be progressing in much the same jolly manner tomorrow too.

Flap Flap Flap

I've a string of pictures fro you here, partly because I am so very tired that I have not the energy to be writing much and if I do it will be even more gobble-de-gook than it usually is.

I'm in flap flap flap mode now, Kindrogan next weekend, crikey where did that come from!? I feel so unprepared. Need to get a slide show together this week for that.

A few pots finished this week but my glaze is having a funny turn and appears to be not melting properly all of a sudden. I increased the soak on the next firing but then although it's far more melted and looks better the dam thing has shimmered off some of the pots. I don't have the time nor the spare pots for faffing around at the moment.


Bit more chimney done this weekend with Paul's help. I can kind of see the end approaching with the building side of that project now which is nice.

Progress

You know just when I've got so much time on my hands to be messing about mixing mortar and playing with bricks, thought I'd start the chimney.

Second Week in March

Where on earth did the second week in March come from? Scary how fast it's flying away, I know I keep saying that but it's still frightening me. My mum and dad are maybe thinking the same thing about where on earth does the time go. Yesterday was their 35th wedding anniversary. My sister and I "treated" them to a new picture of the two of us, dubious treat I know but I think they liked it. My good pal photographer Phil McMenemy took it for us. It was supposed to be set out in the forest but it was sleeting the morning we needed to take it. Maybe we'll manage that for their 45th.

I've had a day full of slipping pots today, that and getting handles on what felt like about a quarter of a million jugs.

This picture of one of my Slip Trail Owl Plates has been featured in this months edition of Period Living magazine. It looks good in there, the article it goes with is about a house that has some lovely bits of slipware in it.

Another slipped pot. Tomorrow I have a meeting with Phil (the photographer I mentioned earlier in the post, do keep up) about our upcoming exhibition in August. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another glorious day so I can cycle over there, not that I have the time to be gallivanting about on my bike but it's great to take the advantage of being outside for a little while after being cooped up working for so much of the week.

The all new window!

Ahh, and now I can see, my workshop now has a wonderful huge window letting in loads of light and the sunshine too. I've put the wheel up by it at the moment, it's lovely. I've a new bird feeder to get up outside this window too. It might get too toasty in the summer to be sat there throwing but I'll deal with that as and when it happens. Thank you joiners and H and A it's fab!

I had a jaunt over the weekend, you know in that spare time that I have at the moment. I popped down to Devon, thanks Alex for driving the chunk from the north west down to the sunny south. I haven't spent much time with Alex since I was his student at uni but we went merrily off to visit Doug (we were supposed to be planning our workshops for April but we got waylaid by many other pottery related things). What a few days. As always when I go down there it was great, good company and good pot talk and a good boost of inspiration and you know how a change of scene does the brain good every now and again.

A lot of the weekend seemed to revolve around food, soup done over the gas burner, a picnic on the field, plenty of tea and cake. Where would we be without all that?

The daffs are out down there, ours are progressing but it's a shock always to see how much further into the season the southern end of our country is to where I am.

So we fired the kiln and talked pots and drank tea and watched pottery films and walked in the fields and looked at pictures of pots and played skittles and made pots and all in all had a lovely time, thanks boys.
So back home to Paul who will have been relieved to have had a few days without me wittering about pots, and the new window in the workshop and the big list of things to do but with a clearer head and a more focused plan and the sunshine and spring. Can it be better?